


the street finds its own uses for things

by Shenanigans



Series: There Are No Ordinary Cats [3]
Category: Batman (Comics), DCU (Comics), Red Robin (Comics)
Genre: Absent Parents, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Barbara Gordon is Oracle, Cassandra Cain is Batgirl, Gen, Jason Todd is Catlad | Stray, Stephanie Brown is Robin, Tim Drake is Not Red Robin, Tim Drake needs to be useful, Training Montage, children are left unsupervised, tim doesnt think it's stalking
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-03-11
Updated: 2021-03-16
Packaged: 2021-03-18 10:21:33
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 12,645
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29981412
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Shenanigans/pseuds/Shenanigans
Summary: Tim Drake is used to keeping other people's secrets. Barbara Gordon gives him one to keep for himself.
Relationships: Tim Drake & Jason Todd
Series: There Are No Ordinary Cats [3]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2044156
Comments: 8
Kudos: 65





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> This probably won't make much sense without reading the other works, but I've been wrong before. Title from William H Gibson the father of modern CyberPunk. No beta 'cause I'm a bundle of adhd nerves and impulsiveness.

“How did...?” Jason looked surprised and Tim almost looked behind him. He knew what was there: a rubbed-smooth wood banister to the stairwell that had folded over itself and around the rickety caged-elevator that was currently out of order. The stairs were carpeted, worn smooth in the center as they hopped higher to lead to the top floor of the brick building. Tim knew there were more apartments on the first floor than there were on the third and less on the top floor than the third. He knew that the second step up on the stoop was cracked, wobbling with a clatter if someone stepped on it the wrong way. Tim was ten, but he knew a lot of things.

He didn’t know how the older boy would react to him showing up unannounced. They’d only met once.

It had taken a bike ride from his house to the bus stop the help used, a public bus over the bridge, a two block walk to the correct subway, and then three stops to find the exit. He’d passed a trio of passed out homeless men clustered under a tarp and a bodega who’s one eyed gray cat had been lounging across the bags of cheetos just above the edge of the lotto advertising posted in the windows. The whole block smelled like weed, thick incense, piss, sweet vanilla body spray, and toasted sandwiches. He’d stopped to buy a Grape Soder, staining his tongue purple as he wove through the clusters of pedestrians to the side street. The block had opened like a dimple of quiet as he took the right and counted the spindly London plane-trees until he found the address he’d memorized. 

The trip had taken a little over an hour.

“The trick is to look like you know what you’re doing,” Tim said with a small shrug that rattled his backpack. Jason’s hair was sticking up in the back and curling over his forehead. He looked like he’d just woken up. Jason at thirteen was gawky and coltish with the faint softness that meant he was about to shoot up in height. Tim was pretty sure he was never going to be tall, but Jason seemed like he was always about to start something: a fight, a growth spurt, an adventure. Tim scrunched his face and plastered on his version of conspiratorial. “And to look tired.” 

“How did you get-?”

“Oh,” Tim pointed behind him with a thumb. “The lady with the white pekingese thanked me for holding the door for her. Apparently, I’m a ‘very nice young boy’.”

Jason was older than him; he was _cool_. Tim realized belatedly that he probably should have asked before showing up, but he’d lost the phone number when Mrs. Mac had done the laundry. 

The silence stretched. His soda fizzed, crackling against the aluminum can as it sweat in the late spring humidity. Jason was wearing a loose pair of sweat-pants, a neat white t-shirt, two taped fingers, a black eye, and three different colors of cat hair. Tim frowned and rubbed the toe of his sneaker against the back of his calf in a quick nervous tic. 

A fat faced orange tabby poked a round head around the doorframe, the older boy shifting quickly to block it before it attempted an escape. The cat glared up at him, dour, before waddling to the other side and pretending a leisurely attempt at sprinting that ended with a surprised muffled meow when Jason scooped the fat cat up and into his arms. Tim hadn’t realized that cats could look so expressively put-upon and simultaneously lazily delighted.

“I guess you should come in,” Jason muttered, turning and walking back into the apartment. He’d left the door open.

“I brought my GameStation,” Tim called in apology, stepping in one quick burst over the threshold and closing the door behind him. He stepped on the heel of his sneaker, popping them off and cracking his socked toes. They didn’t have a shoe cubby so Tim set them next to the tall intricately carved mahogany end table that was topped with a cut crystal bowl filled with keys, a string of pearls, a few gum wrappers, and a set of keys. There was a tiffany lamp next to the bowl that Tim realized was an original _Erte_. He flushed hard on a closer look, the three lovers tangled elegantly up the base to hold the delicate colored glass. He focused on the mottled mirror hanging over it and the smattering of post-it notes in alternating looping delicate scrawl and blocky print. 

“Jesus,” Jason tossed the fat orange cat onto a plush wingback and turned to stare at him. “You’re lucky you didn’t get mugged.”

“What were they going to take? My lunch money? No one wants homework,” Tim answered, pulling up short at the end of the foyer hallway as a long-legged big-eared siamese scampered awkwardly across the wood floor and barrelled into his shins. The cat was cross-eyed with a wedge shaped head topped with two huge dark ears. It butted at him imperiously before starting a long warbling yowl that sounded like a baby crying. Tim took a step back. “Um. What’s it doing?”

“Don’t worry. That just means he likes you,” Jason snorted and pointed to where the siamese was actively attempting to trip Tim. “That’s Capote. He’s an idiot.” 

“Um, hello Cat.”

“Capote,” Jason corrected as Tim tried to side step the gangly feline. He spun in a slow circle on socked feet and pointed to where three other cats were lounging. The white tom flopped over the back of the couch was pronounced: “Langston.” The gray curled onto the round deep blue velvet floor cushion: “Filigree McGee. I blame Holls for that one.” The one-eared black that had two paws hanging into the living room from where it was stretched onto the fire escape became “Black Jack.” He shrugged. “You already met Shake.”

“Right. _Shake_.” 

“Technically, he’s Shake-o-matic in the attic, but Shake is easier.” Jason turned and looked at him, face cracking into a sly amused grin. “You’ve never been around cats before?”

Tim was edging past where Capote had flung himself dramatically onto the hallway runner to yowl a plaintive cry. His book bag rustled as it scraped along the wall. The long legged siamese stretched a paw toward him, hooking a claw into the loose shoelace. “I’m allergic to cats.”

“This should be fun,” Jason laughed, shaking his head and wandering into the kitchen. A three legged black and white cat scampered from the kitchen to an open door down the hall. 

The living room was a riot of color and Tim found himself struck staring from one bit to the next. His life was a carefully curated, meticulously clean, display of modern sensibilities and artifacts. They’d been in magazines. They’d been applauded for their taste, but this felt like a home. It felt overwhelming as a hug from a heavy bosomed woman who smelled like baking, perfume, and comfort. Tim did what he always did when that happened: he went stiff legged and awkward, unsure of what to do with his hands. “Thank you for having me.”

“Not like you gave me much choice,” Jason snorted as he grabbed a mug from the pass through, sniffed it, rinsed it, and filled it with tap water. Tim tried not to stare. He’d read about the dangers of tap water in Gotham. Jason seemed fine as he padded back to the living room and stretched one of his long fingers for the white cat to sniff and lick once. There was a book tented open on the coffee table and a pile of pillows stacked against one arm of the purple (purple!) couch.

“Are you mad?”

“That you’re here?” Jason shrugged. “Not really. What’d you tell your parents?”

“What happened to your face?”

“A fist,” Jason smirked and Tim remembered the way he’d laughed when Tim had beaten the next level in the game, shoulder to shoulder in the quiet library. It had felt like maybe they could be friends. Jason seemed closer than Dick. Dick was someone he watched- like a spectator, like the older boy was still performing. “You didn’t answer.”

Tim frowned, looking down and clutching the straps of his book bag tighter. The Siamese cat gave up on subtlety and heaved to stand, stretching long legs up his side, hooking needle-sharp claws into his t-shirt as it opened its mouth to yell at him. “I didn’t.”

“Answer?” Jason asked, taking pity on him and reaching over to gently unhook Capote from his shirt and tuck the long bodied cat against his side. The Siamese looked empty-headed and smug as it dangled like a rag doll, front legs sticking straight out. Tim could hear when it started purring. “Or tell them.”

“Most people don’t catch that,” Tim muttered.

“I’m not most people, Timberly.”

Tim swallowed and looked up. “That’s what I’m hoping.”

Jason grinned at him then and it looked like it might be real. “Take your bag off and stay awhile.”

“Okay.” Jason didn’t need to know that he intended to stay as long as he’d let him. He sneezed, sudden and loud. Two cats looked at him in utter betrayal before settling back into sleep. Tim sighed, scrubbing his nose with the back of his wrist. He set his bag down. “Who’s fist?”

“Mom’s friend. He’s teaching me how to box.”

“That’s so cool. That’s... _so_ cool. Ugh.” Tim frowned into his book bag. “Think you can teach me?”

“You should probably just run.”

Tim almost told him that he was already good at that. He almost told him that he was better at hiding. He pulled out his GameStation instead, each controller wrapped carefully and a few games he thought Jason would enjoy. He set them on the coffee table. “You can just say no, Jason.”

“Jay.”

“What?” Tim glanced over from where he’d been looking around the cluttered space: there was a glittering cluster of crystals in a bowl that he was pretty sure weren’t quartz or glass, a small stack of paintings leaning against the wall and a few art tubes. The museum had been robbed of a few paintings that had been acquired by a family after WW2 two months prior. Tim had followed the history back, had followed the purchases, had found the strange blank spot between a prominent Jewish family in Berlin and the rich Swiss bank that sold it to a private investor in Argentina before it was sold to a family in Boston. 

He didn’t mention that he had a photo of a boy smoking idly in an alley across the street. Maybe they’d talk about that later. Maybe he’d show Jason his pictures.

“I told you, you can call me Jay.”

*

Tim couldn’t make the big leaps over the wider alleys yet, but he was getting better. The hard part was not making noise; the hard part was knowing this part of the city well enough that he didn’t lose his balance on the fire escape on the building off Plum that creaked and yanked roughly from the brick if he didn’t stay to the right hand side of the ladder. Gotham at night was beautiful, a spiraling sigh of pale mica-schist blocks against a low hanging haze colored with neon and the ever-present orange glow of the aging streetlights. Tim felt alive when he was moving through her streets, when he was tracing his fingers against the scumbled paint on a massive hvac unit huddled against the black tar roofing. He liked the way some of the stickers slapped on signs bubbled before they peeled. 

Something was always for sale. Something was always happening. Someone was always lost. Someone was always trying to survive. Something was always being created, being celebrated, being screamed into the night. He liked the way Gotham was layered on top of itself like endless flyers advertising what was next.

Tim worked hard to blend in- he’d done the research. He hid the clothes he wore from his parents. (His housekeeper if he’s being accurate; he’s pretty sure his mother has never once done a load of laundry since the first patent she sold rocketed her into the upper middle class.) The shoes were carefully maintained black leather sneakers. He’d scuffed them enough to not be worth stealing. He’d picked them because the soles were deep enough to land silently. 

The noise was what Batman always noticed first. If Tim was out of tempo with the natural sounds of the city the man would turn, eyes scanning the shadows. So, he needed to be silent. He’d practiced with a decibel counter behind his house. The multi-level deck and the crunchy autumn leaves worked in practice. Gravel sounded different. Moss was slippery. He’d made meticulous notes. He’d taken the time to watch the youtube tutorials on how to land without breaking his ankles. 

Tim was smart. He started small. Tim was diligent. He practiced daily. Tim was fixated. He couldn’t stop now.

The shadows moved with the city. A car would send a white streak along a wall, bounce a watery reflection from a muddy puddle. Staying hidden wasn’t staying still, it was learning to move with the city when it shifted. It was layering different shades of gray and black against each other. It was smearing face paint over his pale skin and then scrubbing it off before he took the morning bus home. He was sure no one would actually care if he kept it on. Gotham trained people to mind their own, to stay inside their small space. It taught people to keep hands in pockets and eyes down. 

He’d bought the black hoodie from the second hand shop outside the Bowery. The store smelled like antiseptic and baby powder, the vinyl tiled floor scuffed and slightly gritty. The furniture section smelled like old cigarettes and green floor cleaner. The racks of clothes were clean but rough. The charity didn’t waste money on fabric softener. He’d fingered the frayed edge of the hood and traced the teeth of the mottled metal zipper. It was perfect: ragged, well worn, and missing two teeth near the top that he’d covered with black sharpie. He’d replaced the white drawstring with a black one. 

Gotham was wet in the city proper, the hills on the other side of the Kane catching the humid air from the bay and holding it with tight hands against the prickle of buildings. It stained the buildings black at the edges, lingered on the trees as lichen, and puddled on rooftops, sidewalks, and potholes. Tim had tried wearing comfortable jeans first, frowning at the way they went heavy and cold in the constant fall drizzle that hazed through downtown in blustery gusts. He swapped it with a tracksuit and then a set of black sweats before finally settling on a pair of compression leggings and a pair of silky shorts. It was a little ridiculous and his knobby knees and skinny ankles were highlighted. The track suit had made a stunning amount of noise as the fabric bustled and shifted when he ran. The sweats were too loose after a long night and if he cinched them they left bruises cut into his hips. 

In the end, the hardest part was setting up his camera in a place where he could manage the shot without a reflection catching on the lens. He’d been making small innocuous purchases on his parents accounts until he’d built the camera rig he wanted. He treasured his NikonD6 with assorted lenses and kept his prized telephoto lens locked away in the small safe he’d purchased; it was worth more than his special cufflinks. He kept them in a runner’s saddle bag strapped across his chest and weighted to sit between his shoulder blades without restricting movement.

Tim was small, but he’d never let that stop him before. He used it to his advantage.

Tonight, he was perched on the office building two over from the roof of the precinct. The signal was on and Tim shifted his heels in quick movements, keeping the blood moving and working to make sure his knees and hips didn’t lock up while he waited in the shadow. The camera was set on a small tripod that clipped onto the edge of a gargoyle. He was careful to make sure to put his cameras on objects that didn’t have nice straight edges- it helped obscure them. He’d read about how to place it innocuously from photojournalists who worked to photograph the more reclusive animals. He’d read about their patience, their rigs, and their obsessions.

It made his own feel less strange.

Jim Gordon was smoking in a trenchcoat and backlit by the signal. He was a middle aged man with graying reddish brown hair, thick glasses, and a sturdy build. He had a kind face, but Tim had never seen his top lip. Jim Gordon would trim his mustache next week. He’d get his hair cut at Lou’s on 7th this coming Tuesday like clockwork. Tim respected him: a man of routines and righteousness. 

A burst of color and movement tumbled onto the roof with a flourish. Tim saw Robin first. He was supposed to. 

The smile was the same. Robin’s smile was the same and Tim was triggering the shutter before he could stop himself. 

Tim didn’t remember the entire day clearly, but he remembered certain moments with a stunning certainty. The air smelled like sweet fried bread and hay. It smelled like deep musk animals and his mother’s delicate perfume. He remembers the feeling of exhilaration. He remembers the way it felt to have his father hold his hand. He remembers the stunned way he’d stared at the boy in the costume, the feel of his hands: calloused and worn against his arm. The bony bench of his muscled thigh and the heat of him as he held Tim easily. Tim had stared up at the boy and not looked away. Dick Grayson was built for the spotlight, hard muscles, rough work-strong hands, dark messy cowlicked hair, thick dark eyelashes, and the stunning blue of his eyes.

Tim had been transfixed then, now he triggered a cluster of shots. Wherever Robin was, Batman wasn’t far behind. The spotlight pierced the night sky, shining against the low hanging clouds, but the bright caused the shadows to lengthen, to spread, to puddle together in misshapen clusters. The cape moved in the breeze, a flick of edge against the dark and Tim held his breath. Batman always moved on purpose.

Robin was going tall and gangly, shoulders broadening and Tim could see his adam’s apple in the column of his tanned throat. He could see the coltish weight of his hands, his feet, the adult he would become stretching the seams of this boy in the bright clothes, but he felt almost dainty compared to the man slipping from the shadows. The bulk and breadth seemed impossible. Tim had seen Bruce Wayne in a suit, had seen the vapid smile and heard the small sharp barbs his mother would toss to his father on the way home from the galas. 

“How that man runs a multinational corporation when he can’t seem to figure out how to drink champagne from a coupe glass is beyond me,” his mother had muttered in the car on the way home. She’d slipped off her heels and was rubbing a thumb along the arch of her left foot.

“He’s charming,” Jack had answered. “People will let him get away with anything after dealing with the gloom of his teens. You didn’t know him then, dear.”

“Neither did you,” she’d snapped. “Timothy? Did you make nice with the boy he’s taken in?”

“I-”

“He’s too young to be friends with that boy, Janet.” Jack had reached, pulling his mother’s feet into his lap and starting the careful massage that relaxed her. “I wouldn’t have wanted a kid following me around at Grayson’s age either.”

“Timothy is precocious,” Janet had sighed, toes cracking as she tapped them against his father’s shirt front.

“That doesn’t make him interesting to older boys, dear. It makes him weird.”

Tim didn’t bother to take offense. He knew he was odd. He knew things that other people didn’t. He kept secrets and manners. He thought about the way Bruce Wayne had smiled broadly, jaw chiseled and blue eyes carefully vapid. He thought about the way he wore those suits just slightly ill fitting, the cuffs too long and covering the strength in his thick wrists. He knew that Bruce was choosing to drink from the champagne bottle instead of the coupes because that bottle was filled with soda and not booze. Tim knew things they didn’t know.

Tim turned and stared at the endless trees and the curving dark of the Wayne Estate private drive. They didn’t know what Tim knew:

 _Bruce Wayne was the Batman_.

And that changed everything.

*

The fridge was fully stocked and Tim sighed, leaning his temple against the edge of the stainless steel side. The crisper had stacks of neat persian cucumbers and bright red tomatoes. The juice was in pitchers. The food in pyrex. The eggs in the door. The milk was expensive. The packaging left behind proudly organic. There was a salmon filet waiting for tomorrow’s dinner preparations. He hated salmon. 

There was a small bundle of mint laying next to the smooth green basil. He could snag the pyrex Mrs. Mac had made for him. She prepped the week’s meals on Sunday’s, freezing them and pulling to match the detailed schedule his parents left behind when they left him behind. 

“It’s lasagna,” their housekeeper had told him as she hitched her purse over her shoulder and dug out her bus pass. She was sweet, silver haired, and uninterested in being a parental figure. She cleaned his clothes, made his bed, scrubbed the tiles in the bathroom, dusted the extensive collection of priceless artifacts his parent’s brought back with them from their supervisory visits to the factory locations out of country.

“Less regulation,” his father had explained, terse as he read the news on his tablet at the formal dining table. He liked quiche and black Ethiopian coffee. His mother preferred croissants and fresh preserves with a Sumatran. Tim liked scrambled eggs with ketchup or paired with a sausage- cheese biscuit and the deep fried hash-browns he bought at the Big Belly Burger just over the Kane. “Siri, set up a reminder to meet with Marjorie for-.”

“Jack, we have to make sure to double check that the security installation at the facility in HangZhou is up to-”

“We will. The stranding successes on the new entiomer trials are promising. That should take priority. I’ll move Marjorie to lead the rNA production project for LexCorp in HangZhou.”

“Did we agree on that? That seems premature. Is she up to running an entire installation?”

“I’m sure Marjorie can handle the installation.”

“I’m sure you believe _Marjorie_ can handle anything, _dear_.”

“She’s competent.” His father didn’t look up from the reports, just grunted a soft sarcastic sound. 

“She’s _pretty_.” His mother ripped the end of the croissant with sharp fingers, daintily shaking the bits of crumb onto the white stoneware. She was striking, black haired, pale, with large blue eyes. 

“Is she pretty?” His father was a standard American white man with brown hair, blue eyes, and a square face. He wasn’t tall, but he was charismatic- red-faced with rage when necessary, and moved through the world with the thoughtless sort of entitlement that he’d been born into. 

“You know she’s pretty, Jack. Don’t be obtuse. It’s unbecoming.” 

Tim was used to the silences. He had learned that stillness could be sharper than words. His mother was a master of letting a silence slice someone and then linger until they broke. Jack lasted longer than most. He finished his breakfast first.

“We should make a stop in Parnassus. Stay an extra day in the market.” He’d glanced up, eyes holding Janet Drake’s pale gaze easily. “That Hilton with the infinity pool?”

“If you want,” his mother had replied, pacified.

Tim had stared at the soft boiled egg perched in the pretty white porcelain holder. The top of the shell cut away with a specific tool. The yolk had been bright yellow, perfectly cooked. He’d picked at the bit of shell and waited until they were actually gone. His toast hadn’t even gone cold before their day whisked them from the table and into the car. They were always packed.

Tim had learned to be prepared from his parents.

He snatched the lasagna with a clatter and kicked the door shut, turning around in the kitchen to walk to the industrial microwave. The kitchen itself was lined with glass fronted cabinets in white wood. The backsplash was a colorful tangle of imported tile in heady geometrics over the white marble counters. The floor matched the backsplash until it butted up to the delicate parquet of the dining room through the arched entryway. The island in the center of the space contained two convection ovens and a set of drawers holding the utensils and silverware. The sink was a massive stainless steel dual basin with a garbage disposal on the right and a polished over the sink colander. The large window had two shelves that housed the neatly labeled fresh herb plants that as far as Tim knew, were never used for cooking.

Like most of his life, these were for display only.

The microwave was the only part of the kitchen he felt comfortable using on a regular basis. He’d been banned from most other parts by Mrs Mac after she’d had to soak one of the larger stock pots with a fabric softener sheet to remove the burnt crust he’d managed to leave on the bottom. He didn’t mind.

The house itself was nestled on a three acre parcel that had been sold off during the recessession, snatched up by enterprising new rich to build their dream homes just outside Gotham proper, stretching across the Kane bridge into the illusion of wealth. Tim could walk to the edge of his property and find the treeline that marked the start of the Wayne Estate, but he couldn’t see the mansion, couldn’t even pretend that there were golden lights flickering on and off in his orbit.

Instead, he lived in a slapped-together tangle of trapezoids in an homage to tudor style homes with a nestled three car garage, an actual turret, a curving staircase dominating the foyer, and massive antique chandelier that his mother had purchased somewhere in Bulgaria. He hated it, but it was better than the creeping sensation of being haunted by the empty masks that adorned the walls to his father’s office and the formal sitting room. Some family’s displayed portraits, his displayed casual appropriation. 

His mother insisted they were conversation pieces, but Tim thought that it was more that his parents wanted to own a bit of history to give them and their new up and coming pharmaceutical company legitimacy.

If they couldn’t have the Wayne name, they could have the funding and the possibility of heirlooms. Tim didn’t want any of them.

“Wait, back up. Is that? Is that an _actual_ Egon Schiele?” Jason’s voice had asked one night while he walked through his house during a facetime conversation. 

“I think?” Tim had shrugged, turning the phone to the small sketch that was tastefully matted and framed on the wall between the office and the library. He’d been running down the hall in quick sprints to slide on socked feet because it made Jason laugh.

“That’s big money, Timbo,” Jason had muttered. Tim had rolled his eyes and watched the older boy block the big white tom cat from sitting on his face where he was flopped in his bed. Jason’s room was cozy and decorated with a Gotham Knights pennant pinned to the wall and one baseball in an acrylic box displayed proudly on the nightstand next to a battered paperback copy of Frankenstein. 

“I guess. Mom picked it up at an auction in Argentina last year I think?” The sketch was gaunt with long boned arms and sharp collarbones, a pot belly and flaccid penis in a scumbled thatch of black pubic hair. Tim always felt strange walking past the nude, haunted by the hollow dark eyed stare the young man turned out from the page onto the viewer. “It’s kinda disturbing to have a dick in my face on my way to breakfast, but I guess that’s just my life now.”

“You love dick in your face. Don’t lie.”

Tim had flicked Jason off and started sprinting to hide the way his face went red, hitting the polished section of hardwood with a smooth glide. 

Now, the lasagna was bubbling and Tim tugged the edge of his oversized hoodie down over his fingers like an oven mitt as he elbowed the microwave door shut. He tucked the tines of the fork into his mouth, snagging his phone as he started padding out of the kitchen to head up to his room. He could eat in the kitchen, but it felt empty. He could eat in the dining room, but it was cavernous. He could eat in the entertainment room, but it was easier to settle into the large comfy chair he’d set up in front of his multi-monitor display. At least in his room, it felt like someone lived there even if Mrs Mac did her level best to erase any sign of him each afternoon he was away at Brentwood. 

“You don’t have to clean my room,” he’d attempted once he’d turned twelve. 

Mrs Mac was a silver-haired woman with grey-blue eyes and dark brows that sat in flat lines across her face. She had rosy cheeks and a thin lipped smile. She’d been holding one of his dirty socks up as if it was sentient. “I assure you,” she’d snorted, soft accent thrumming into her surprisingly supple voice. “I do.”

Tim’s room was its own wing of the house. He’d picked the room over the garage and it had been converted to a bedroom like an afterthought, the sharp interior angles canted down from the steepled ceiling to poke two gabled windows on the east side of the house while the west side of the room had a spectacular view of the roof. 

It functioned as a convenient exit and entrance. The sloped architecture made an almost simple back and forth until he could hop onto the edge of the pool house and clamber down onto the deck. From there it was a quick dash into the woods where he kept his bike and a sprint to the end of the cul-du-sac and freedom. Tim hid his backpack in the small gap between the vent on the side of the garage and the interior wall, not like his parents were home enough to notice his nightly jaunts into the city. Some kids complained about being latch-key. Tim didn’t mind though, he had his own bathroom and lived a relatively unbothered life as his parents functioned and entertained in the opposite side of the mini mansion. 

It felt disingenuous to complain when they had a pool, a maid, a privacy fence lining the back yard, and a library. Tim was used to the structure of his loneliness. He knew that the books in his library were for show; he knew they repeated.

“That’s fuckin’ bullshit,” Jason had informed him, disappointment bleeding into every line of his broadening frame as he stared up at the shelves. “What the fuck is the point of a library if it’s not gonna actually have books?”

“It does have books.” Tim shrugged. “It makes them look smart.”

“Thought they were Doctors or something.”

“Or something.” 

His father was a businessman with a natural charm, a trust fund, and a talent for collecting patents. His mother was a chemical engineer with a secondary doctorate in biochemistry and pharmacology. She’s been the mind behind the first patent his father had bought.

“Easiest money I’ve ever spent,” his father would say, smiling at where Janet would wink by rote back at him, her glossy black hair caught up in a winsome seeming updo. She liked pearls and his father’s ability to make them more money. 

“You make it sound like you bought _me_ , dear.”

“Priceless. I couldn’t afford you, my love.” She’d beam at him and the investors would sigh and eat it up.

Tim knew just how expensive their fights could be. He knew that his father had a tendency to drink too much. He knew that his mother had a tendency to let her fingers linger too long on her friend Emma’s lower back. The new vase displaying a spectacular flair of calla lilies in the entry was a replacement for the one Jack had broken stumbling home as Janet screamed at him and plucked her pearls from her ears. Their fights would shatter into cold wars of quiet politeness.

Tim wished that they’d thought to install sound proofing in his room. He settled for noise canceling headphones.

He was two steps up the stairs that curled around the entryway, filled with the heady smell of lilies and the warm mouthwatering savory of his dinner, when the doorbell rang. It was a three tone warning that belled into the interior; it echoed slightly.

Tim froze. The system he’d installed should have dinged an alert on his phone when someone entered the property. It should have notified him the moment someone turned onto the long drive. The video feed should have been available. He should have had some sort of warning.

Instead, he was frozen in the foyer with a fork in his mouth and an empty McMansion stretching behind him in beige and delicate decorative sensibilities. 

“I assure you, it’s possible,” a female voice said from his phone. It was followed by a brief stern rap of knuckles to the door. “Now open up, Tim. We need to talk.”

“One minute?” Tim managed, snatching the fork out of his mouth and staring warily at the door. He lifted his phone, thumbing to the security app he’d installed, watching it load. The house was silent around him. The security system hadn’t chirped. The camera motion sensors hadn’t pinged his phone. The step didn’t creak as he crept back down to the foyer. The space was round with an antique mahogany table that cupped the delicate vase. He ducked away from the reaching curl of the lilly and tried to get a look through the lead paned glass ticking along the side of the heavy double doors. Someone was there, a pixelated form in dark clothing that melted into the late evening.

“Tim. I’d appreciate it if you just opened the door, please.”

“How do I know you’re not a robber?” Tim heard himself ask, voice cracking high on the last vowel. He swallowed, clearing his throat.

“I’m not even going to dignify that with an answer, Tim. You’re smarter than that.” 

“That... okay. Um.” Tim set his dinner on the floor, rubbed his palms against his thighs, and thumbed a quick text to Jason just in case. “One second.”

“I’d prefer to keep this private,” the woman on the other side of the door said as the message hung in green- unsent. 

“Not really inspiring trust here,” Tim muttered and changed his grip on the fork to something defensive. 

The door wasn’t as heavy as it appeared: hollow and made of metal instead of real wood. It was a replica. The woman on the other side of the door cocked him a look that was both annoyed and amused behind wire framed glasses and a smug smirk. She was lovely with one of those sculpted heart shaped faces that was capped by a pert nose and wickedly intelligent blue eyes. She felt like subtle threat- the kind that lingered like soft perfume in an empty room- even as she palmed the wheel rails of her chair and kicked the front wheels over the lip of the door and slipped into the house. The move rolled her forward as she skimmed a palm along the left rail to swing the chair into a slow turn that circled the space.

Barbara Gordon was in his foyer reaching long fingers to stroke under the sturdy calla lilly bloom. She was wearing a plain white t-shirt, a navy cardigan, a pair of elastic topped jeans, and chuck taylors that matched, the toes scuffed and the soles worn down with a small tear near the eyelet seams on the left foot. Tim noted her scarred knuckles, the faint split in her top lip, and the bump in her nose. Tim noted that she was watching him take stock even as her blue eyes flicked to the fork he was threatening her with and then back to his face. “I’m not spaghetti, kiddo.”

“Not a kid,” Tim replied, dropping his fork and his false sense of unease. “Miss Gordon.”

“So polite.” She grinned at him and Tim’s heartbeat kicked up. It was different seeing it up close instead of behind the mask, behind the undaunted way she would fling herself from a building. He understood why Dick was always following her with a laugh and a flush.

“I’d offer you a seat,” he said, flushing harder at the implication. “But those are for guests.”

“Are we skipping formalities? Because I would love that,” Barbara sighed. She folded her arms. “You know who I am?”

“Yes, Miss Gordon.”

“You know who I _really_ am?”

The house Tim lived in was made of messy trapezoids and angled roofs. It was a husk filled with empty rooms for display only. It was filled with recessed can lighting meant to pick out the displayed antiquities and the carefully curated life the founders of Drake Industries wanted guests to see. It was nothing but false fronts, taupe edges, crown moulding, and imported wealth. The foyer curled around them as content as a sleeping cat, the stairs leading to the second floor and the alcove that contained a small settee his mother used to unstrap the dainty terrifyingly high heels she wore to events. The second floor split into the main house where his parents lived occasionally between business trips. The was a library. There was an empty craft room. The guest rooms built over the massive kitchen were never used. The laundry room, the nanny’s quarters were all unused and neatly tucked away like the promise of another sibling. 

“You... you’re- It’s supposed to be a secret.” Barbara nodded at him and Tim was suddenly tired of pretending he wasn’t lonely. “Batgirl. You’re _Batgirl_.”

“Was.” Babara Gordon touched her tongue to her top lip and focused sharply on the lilly in front of her. Tim saw the way her fingers dimpled into the pale skin of her wrists before relaxing. “It’s time to be something new. You’re _something_ , Tim.”

“I’m just-”

"People will tell you that you always have two options," Barbara Gordon told him, wheeling backwards from the vase of lilies and tilting her head for him to follow. She was moving through his house like she had been there before, the rubber wheels tapping a soft thrumming sound on the tile before going silent on the carpet that led back toward the kitchen. Tim took the moment she was out of sight to check his phone. The text to Jason hung, unsent. He swallowed and blew out a breath, snatching his dinner from where he’d set it on the floor and followed her. 

The hallway’s pools of recessed light caught sparks of blond in her red hair as she rolled unerringly toward the kitchen. She took a moment to circle around the island, letting her fingers stroke over the white countertop lovingly before she turned to him. 

“I saw you following us once,” Barbara Gordon explained. She looked calm and terrifying as she tilted her head at him. She'd disappeared after- 

Tim's brain tried to focus on the wrong things. He wondered if she dyed her hair. He realized she had freckles under her pale foundation. It made her real. 

“You were very good at hiding.” Batgirl had always been stunning. Tim tried to hide the way his hands were shaking, shoving them into the pockets of his baggy sweatpants and clutching the phone.

"What-?" He glanced behind him to where his house was still silent and empty like nothing had changed. She was silent as a ghost. He wanted to check the video feeds. He wanted to dig into his security to find where it had failed him. He scrubbed a hand over his hair like that would hide him.

"In any war, you can fight..." She rolled forward into his space. He took a step backwards. She smiled. "Or you can _run_."

"Is this about-?" Tim's back hit the side of the island and he stared at Barbara Gordon. She was wearing a neat smile, tidy ponytail, veiled violence, and a wheelchair. She knew what he did at night. She _knew_. "I won't-"

"People forget that there's a third option. Hell, sometimes, a fourth and fifth if you're paying attention." She tilted her head, lifting one of her capable scarred hands to study her trimmed short nails. "You know what that is, Tim? Have you been paying attention?"

"How did you find me?"

"That's not what I asked, Tim. You’re not stupid. You’re not ordinary. Don’t play like you are with me, please."

Tim stilled. He'd always been good at tests. He looked around, trapped against the silent endless emptiness of the kitchen and her gaze. He swallowed and then dropped the act. "You can help."

Barbara Gordon- _Batgirl_ \- smiled at him and reached carefully to take his wrist, pulling his hand from his pocket. He almost felt guilty about the phone she took from him to set on the counter. She turned his hand over and looked at his palm, his fingers, his wrist; she looked at _him_ critically. “I think you _want_ to be useful, Tim. I think you’re exactly what I need.”

“I don’t understand-”

“Batman needs help. He can’t be everywhere. He can’t _see_ everything. Things fall through the cracks. People get _hurt_.” She tilted her head at him. “I’m going to change that. I’m going to see everything.” She huffed a soft laugh and smiled. For the first time, it felt unpracticed. She felt real. This moment solidified for Tim. 

“I’m going to need help. I can't get all the places I used to.” She wheeled backwards and away from him, gliding toward the fridge to help herself to bottled water. The blue glass looked vivid next to her hair. She swallowed and sighed, pointing at him around the neck. “I’m going to need someone to be my... well, to be my body in the world. An extension of me. Boots on the ground. Something... someone who can interact with Gotham for me from where I watch over the shoulder-”

“An avatar,” Tim breathed, putting a word to what she was asking by rote.

The tangle of lonely taupe and endless fidgeting perfection seemed to fade away under the brilliance of the smile Barbara Gordon handed him. “ _Yes_.”


	2. bit by bit

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Tim evolves into what Barbara needs him to be.

Tim was sure that if he could have ignored the alarm shoving him rudely awake, he would have. Instead, he blinked at the ceiling, face crumbling into near tears for a moment before he blew out a short hot breath and rolled quickly out of bed. The lights throbbed once before sliding back from the stunning full brightness to a softer amber tone. He slapped the alarm on the dresser as he moved, padding barefoot to the bathroom to brush his teeth and start his morning ablutions by rote. He stared at himself, bleary eyed and cowlicked, in the mottled bathroom mirror where the edges of the reflection browned as the chrome edge to the medicine cabinet started to flake as the metal underneath bubbled with rust. The bathroom was small and filled with a sink that was leaning slightly from the wall, a toilet that he turned the water off on at night, an ancient clawfoot tub that didn't drain properly, a shower head with a spitting water pressure, neat white tiled walls, and three towels that he'd accidentally turned a vague gray blue on laundry day. He frowned at the grout, making a mental note to scrub it when he had time.

Tim allowed himself the luxury of thinking he'd ever have extra time. It made the mornings easier. 

He was putting on deodorant, toothbrush caught in his molars as he hunched a little, hissing at the bruises on his ribs and touching lightly at the bandage on his hip, when his next alarm went off on his phone: _Dad's Morning Meds_. The tape securing the bandage was losing its grip. Tim peeled the edge back, checking the two stitches with a critical eye before tugging the gauze away and tossing it in the trash.

"Pants." He sent a hazy grateful thank you to school uniforms as he hopped into a pair of plain khaki's- shoving his boxers into the legs with a quick shuffle of hands before scooping up the rest of the uniform, the pile of homework, and his laptop into his arms. He had a moment to glance around the room before he was scurrying out the door to head downstairs into Jack's part of the house. 

The light at the top of the stairs flickered on and off in a quick series of timed pulses.

"Shit. _Shoes!_ " He skidded to a stop, catching his textbook with a chin and himself with a quick hand to the banister and sprinted back to his room. “Right.” He grabbed his shoes, tossing them on top of the pile in his arms and shoved a balled up pair of socks in his pocket before engaging the locks and alarms with a ducked scan of his retinas. "Sorry, O."

The room's lights flashed once in a soft blue. _Apology accepted_.

The townhouse was a shared duplex brownstone leaning against the rest of the federalist row housing at the fading line between Park Row and Burnley. There were crab apple trees lining the streets in small little dimples of dirt that smelled alternatively like dog pee or day old beer. The Drake residence had three floors and a shared basement that was used as joint storage. The main floor was his father's living space shared with the kitchen, the top floor that Jack had jokingly referred to as Tim's tower, and an adjacent nearly non-existent crawl space that Tim had quietly fortified. The townhouse had roof access, a wheelchair ramp, and three window boxes filled with dead plants the previous owners had installed and the Drakes had promptly murdered.

"Tim?"

The main floor was as open as they could make it with a double wide door enclosing the front office that had been converted into Jack's bedroom.

"Coming!" Tim's bare heel skidded the last step, the landing jarring painfully as he hurried to throw the pile onto the kitchen table and twist into the white undershirt. He didn’t pause, hoping he hadn’t pulled a stitch. He shoved his arms into the white button up as he made it to the double doors, pulling them open and smearing a placid happy face over the intense exhaustion. "Hey, are you ready for the day?"

Jack Drake was pushed half up on the medical bed, the metal roll bar clicked and hitched to the side as he was moving to get settled enough to pluck his legs up and shift into the chair. He was gaunt, skin loose around his jaw and his arms, bare legs thin with swollen hot looking ankles and bare feet. He smiled gamely at Tim, like he didn't want the help, didn't want to ask for the help, but needed them both to pretend this was okay. Tim was good at pretending.

"Almost. Chair got a little away from me." Jack tipped his chin at the chair where it had rolled away from the bed, one wheel unlocked. "Give me a hand?"

"Got it," Tim answered, moving to push the chair against the bed and taking up his position.

Tim was a good son, after all.

*

“Your hair is getting ridiculous,” Jason announced as he tumbled in the window and flopped onto the bed behind where Tim was typing. Tim knew Jason wasn’t clumsy, but he never said anything to correct the bit of drama his friend enjoyed. Tim had heard the soft ping of warning, Oracle disabling the alarms and locks they’d installed, before Jason started climbing the drain pipe. Jason had stopped using the front door to the brownstone almost immediately. He’d stopped pretending politeness. There were more important things to pretend about. “Can you even see?”

“If you put your sneakers on my pillow, I will murder you,” Tim replied, gaze flicking to the article he’d pulled up from the archives in Central City. He paused, hooking the hair tie off his wrist and scooping his hair back in a sloppy half-pony. He showed Jason his teeth in a mocking smile as he returned to typing, fingers quick. “Jealous? You sound jealous of my luxurious, silky hair.” The headboard thumped against the wall as Jason landed on his mattress. “Murder, Jay. _Murder._ ”

“So violent,” Jason snorted and Tim could hear the bed creaking under his weight followed by the telltale thump of his sneakers as he toed them off. Jason at seventeen was still somehow growing in leaps and bounds, lean and brawny with broad shoulders and narrow hips. The retro sneakers he preferred were like two schooners launched on the sea of Tim’s floor. They’d be lost on the breakers of Tim’s tendency for clutter and mess. Jason had learned to pick his way around the piles. “Not jealous, Timbo, just curious. Is it on purpose? Going full hipster? Do I need to stage an intervention?” 

“It’s more lazy genius than conscious choice,” Tim lied. 

“The more androgynous you appear the more difficult it will be for anyone to accurately guess your identity,” Barbara had told him, frowning as she messed with his hair, tucking it behind his ear or pinning it back from his face with small bobby pins. “Your bone structure is really unfair.”

“Robin bitches about my eyelashes all the time,” Tim had answered, nonplussed. 

“I bet she does,” Barbara laughed, tapping the end of his nose before rolling back to her array. “So, she’s seen your eyelashes?”

“Flashes of ankle were making her swoon; I had to do something before she was injured.”

“Robins,” Barbara had sighed and Tim hadn’t meant to consciously glance at the feed to the empty apartment in Bludhaven before she flicked the channel to a hazy back alley. “They’re so needy.”

He wanted to tell Jason, but the secret was too important.

“So, you’re a genius now? Got it.” Jason Todd sprawled into spaces with a lazy spread of thick thighs, thick arms, and absent-minded sex appeal. He draped over furniture like one of his cats and Tim would simply sigh and shove his face to the side. Now, he reached out a long arm and batted at the ends of Tim’s hair where it was caught up. “I’ll allow it. You can pull off androgyny. I mean, you probably look better in heels than me which is an utter crime. You ever think about wearing heels, Timberly?”

“Your kinks are showing, you degenerate. Also, I’m not that short,” Tim deflected. “People like it longer anyway.” He had been training with heels with Dinah since he was fourteen, but he wasn’t going to dignify Jason’s imagination with that response. He ducked instinctively when Jason’s fingers brushed his neck again. “Quit it.”

“Make me,” Jason snorted.

Tim considered it. He considered it longer than he should have. Instead, he lifted the massive barrel-like insulated cup that proclaimed itself as the 64oz GIANT GULP in jagged red font. He sipped daintily from the bendy straw. The energy drink was grape flavored and a little gritty, but cold and so sweet he could almost chew it. He used it to bludgeon Jason’s hand from his hair with a laugh. “You’re proving my point. You know that, right?”

In the monitor's reflection, he could see the eye-roll Jason gave his back. The older boy managed to take up the entirety of Tim’s full bed. He was a comfortable sprawl: his dark curls flopped over the end, one socked heel divoting Tim’s pillow, and the other pressed flat-footed to the poster of his favorite band over the headboard. Jason was in gray joggers, low cut socks, a delicate gold chain, an oversized (unzipped) red hoodie, and three layered shirts. The flash of teeth was feline, smug and haughty when Jason winked at him in reflection. He always seemed to know when people were looking.

Tim didn’t let himself think too hard about the bit of skin showing at the cut of Jason’s hip. He didn’t let himself linger on the flicker of muscle in his forearm or the feral tip of his canines when he smiled. Tim didn’t try to make the same thoughtlessly charming smiles in the mirror anymore. They looked awkward and forced on his sharp face. Jason was handsome in contrapose- angles under round edges. 

“You want me to get you some scrunchies?” Jason asked. “Maybe some barrettes?”

“Nah, I got some.”

“That secret girlfriend that lives in Canada?”

“She doesn’t live in Canada.”

“But she is secret.”

“She is.”

“That’s so dumb, Timbo. I told you about when-”

“You never shut up about it.”

There was a brief pause and Tim sighed, pushing back from his desk and letting the comfortable chair spin him to face where Jason was pretending not to be working up to asking him the question again. He knew what happened in the alley. He was aware that Jason had chewed back the sick shame and disappointment. 

Tim was the one who erased the cctv footage after all. 

He would continue to hide Roy Harper from Jason for his own good. It’s what friends did. “No. Before you even start: no. Absolutely not. You want information on him, you ask Dick. I’m not a glorified google search.”

“Dick’s a dick.” Jason scrunched his face up. “He gets so clingy when I’m nice to him.”

“You shouldn’t have punched him. You know he hates when people don’t like him.”

“That was years ago. He needs to get over it.”

“Hello pot, my name is kettle. Pleasure to meet you.” Tim snorted and rolled his eyes so hard it spun his chair back to face the monitors. “This doesn’t change my answer, you coward.”

Jason frowned and heaved his body weight to bounce himself upright so he could lean back on his elbows and frown at Tim right side up. His knees were spread- thighs _incredible_ \- and Tim kept his eyes resolutely on the article he was supposed to be reading. The new LexCorp merger with a biometric firm in Florence was a signpost for acquisition of the new optic tech. He wanted to stay on top of it. He wondered if it meant with some interesting enhancements he could get a t360 view on the helmet. He wondered how long it would take his mind to adapt to the input. He touched his tongue to his top lip when Jason hooked a toe into the seat of his chair and hauled him backwards with a flex of calf. He lifted his fingers from the keys in surrender and glared at his friend.

Steph had given him permission to look after all. “I mean, I’m surrounded by exceptional human shaped beings of hotness in skin tight clothes. It would be rude to say you can’t look.”

“I don’t want to look,” Tim had told her, earnest around the straw of his vanilla shake. They were sitting on the ledge he’d cleared of pigeon spikes, leaning against the metal slant of the Watchtower roof. She’d seen his face. He’d seen hers. It felt like love. He’d always felt his heart speed at the flicker of red and green and gold, after all. “ _You’re_ my girlfriend.”

Steph had laughed so loudly she’d startled the sleeping pigeons on the Watchtower into grumpy flight.

“ _I do_. I want to look.” She bumped him with her shoulder and gestured with a french fry. “What about _my_ needs?”

“Steph, seriously, I don’t _want_ to look. I’ve got _you_. You’re _Robin_.”

“Sure, boyfriend. While that’s sweet and all, I’ll remind you of that next time you’re staring _directly_ at the Kid on TV with heart eyes and a barely concealed boner.”

Tim had flushed and watched her blonde hair shake behind the wide headband Robin wore. She always flipped the cape off her shoulders and leaned back, a line of red armored tunic, green skirt, and tanned muscular thighs. Tim wanted to cover her up, wanted to make the cape black; he wanted to make the collar higher to protect her neck. He wanted to shove more plating into the fabric. He considered ways to put plating in the pixie boots. He wanted to hide her hair and hide her skin. Sometimes, she just looked so bright- so _alive_. He knew she was so _fragile_ under the bravado and banter. She had explained that she liked to see the “R” all the time, like it proved this was real; it proved this was her _life_ and that she’d been given a gift. 

Tim knows he was built for hiding. Steph was meant to shine.

Jason looked to the side, back out the window of the brownstone Tim lived in with his Dad. The muscle in his jaw jumped as his throat worked, swallowing back something. “It’s just weird that he disappeared.”

“He was an absolute shithead. Here’s to hoping he ended up in rehab or something.”

Tim had enjoyed cracking Roy Harper’s face to the side with his Bo staff the next time they met across the training mats. He’d enjoyed watching the way the redhead had spit blood as he flipped the end of a soup ladle with quick fingers. Tim still hated that he preened slightly under the impressed grin the older vigilante had tossed him.

“I don’t want to train with him again,” Tim had told Dinah when the Archer had arrived at the Watchtower. Canary was diligent in his constant training. He’d folded his arms over his chest and kept the face of his helmet blank and black. He’d tried to sound adult and determined. Somehow, it still sounded petulant and bitter. 

Roy had continued eating an apple in neatly cut slices in the small kitchenette, unphased. The redhead had put on weight and muscle since the exhibit. He’d looked calmer than he had the last time Tim had seen him.

“You’re not always going to have an easy weapon. You might be disarmed. The bo staff is useful, but you’re becoming too reliant,” Dinah had answered.

“What? You want me to build a bow and arrow and shoot them like some cav-”

The apple core had hit just over the optic intake on the facescreen, blinding him with a blurry smear as the proximity warnings on his HUD went wild- lighting up and scrolling useless data in layered alarms. The small paring knife that followed managed to hook through the seam of his suit at his wrist, pinning his hand to the wall. The hit had come from the left, followed by a kick from the right. Tim had been startled, blind, and taken down before the apple juice and spit had rolled over the front of his mask.

“How you like them apples?” Roy’s husky voice had smiled. “This is just a kid, D. You sure about this?”

“Fuck you,” Tim had answered, letting the months of Jason’s uncertainty stain his usual calm. He’d triggered the flare and moved even as Roy reeled back, blinded for a moment. The hit had felt good: solid and necessary. He’d wanted Roy Harper to hurt.

“Sometimes,” Dinah had called as she backed to the edge of the Watchtower mess. “All you have is what’s on hand. Arsenal can teach you how to use it.”

Tim had been taken down by a ladle. He’d lost to a knife block. He’d been disarmed by a fridge magnet. He’d learned. He hadn’t forgiven. He’s the one that had watched Jason put himself back together.

“You’re right. I know you’re right. You’re always right.” Jason would never admit to being a romantic, but he didn’t have to. Tim was his best friend. He knew. No one read Jane Austen that religiously and didn’t have romantic sensibilities.

“Finally, Jason Todd is being sensible.”

“Slander.” Jason’s smile was back, dimmed a little but growing. “This is awful. Quick, say something smart so I can go back to being the reckless one with terrible ideas. I’m the bad influence.”

Sometimes, he wanted to tell Jason that he really wasn’t the reckless one in the friendship. Sometimes, he wanted to have one less secret between them. Tim had a slow healing bruise on his rib and two stitches on the deep wound he’d gotten trying to slip through a wrought-iron fence after following one of the False-facers into Poison Ivy’s territory. The suit would need to be repaired, but Barbara didn’t let him slow down- pushing him through his daily routines despite the injuries. 

“You have a new bruise on your right knee,” she’d said that morning into the com he’d built into the small black spacers he wore in his ears. His necklace acted as the mic and matched the ones Babs had given to her other birds. He never took it off.

“I clipped it on the fire-escape,” Tim had answered, keeping his breathing even as he moved through the park on quick feet. Today was distance and stamina building; he’d run 12 miles before school. She’d sent him the day’s training schedule the night before after annotating his injuries and cataloguing his vitals. Tim followed the directions by rote, noting the pulsed-buzz instructions from his watch guiding him left and right in simplified morse code.

“Did you ice it?”

“No _Mom_ , I just figured amputation was the move,” Tim had answered, tipping his chin up to make a face at the cctv camera on the edge of the stone bridge as he passed. There were 8,435 registered cameras in the Gotham Domain Awareness System. It paled in comparison to the number of cameras he’d installed for Oracle. 

Tim had memorized them all.

“Smartass,” Babs had laughed, voice the modulated sexless tone of Oracle in his ear. He’d grinned at the small buzz of static that meant she was laughing. “You won’t like what I amputate, kiddo.”

“Noted!” He’d flipped around, jogging backwards for a moment to smirk at the retreating camera before turning and digging into a higher gear, determined to prove his worth. He hadn’t wanted to stay in tonight.

He wondered if she’d sent Jason as a distraction. He wondered if she could play chess to that level.

“Something smart?” Tim asked after a moment, realizing Jason was waiting for him to answer. “Okay. How about this: if two pieces of the same type of metal touch in space they will permanently bond. I read about it on the field trip to the new Wayne Exhibit. Apparently it’s called cold welding and it happens because the atoms of two pieces of metal have no way of knowing they are separate.” He grinned. “Atoms in space are idiots, basically.” 

“Idiot metal?” Jason huffed. 

“It doesn’t happen on Earth because of the air and water found between the pieces,” Oracle whispered into his comms at the same time, the layered information disconcerting. “You sure you want to talk about helpless bonding with him?”

“It’s all I had on short notice,” Tim muttered, tips of his ears heating up.

“It’s kind of sweet. That’s out of character. Are you feeling okay?” Jason laughed and flopped back on the bed, tossing an arm over his eyes.

“Oh, shut up,” Tim managed. 

They sat in silence for a while, the soft clatter of Tim typing covering the slow rise and fall of Jason’s breath. It was comfortable and known. Tim valued it more highly than he could explain. 

His bedroom was a mess, stacks of papers spilling out of a folder he’d tossed next to his desk. His backpack was open, peeled outward with a few books tugged out and set within arms reach. He’d forgotten about the pair of boxers he’d balled up and tossed at the hamper. They hung half unfurled and plaid against the white plastic. He had a set of D&D guides on the bookshelf next to the line of nonfiction biographies he read like popcorn. A picture of his mom sat on the dresser next to another picture of him as a kid at the circus when they were still a family. His camera equipment was neatly stacked on the papasan chair hunkered in the corner of the room. He had a set of collectables posing on glass shelves over the small flat screen tv that had five game consoles plugged in to a master receiver he’d fiddled to work after finding it at a thrift store. 

It looked like a teen boy’s room. It looked like the truth. There were no neighbors in the brownstone next door, the deed quietly purchased and set behind false buyers that never led back to Oracle. The truth lived there with his suit, his gear, his lies.

Outside the brownstone Gotham endured, the day seeping into evening with the churn of cars on the cobblestone side street and the overloud music from the apartments two doors down- an endless thumping drum and bass preferred by the small cluster of immigrants. He could hear Dana chattering at his father on the first floor, her voice a sweet sound that peaked into laughter at whatever Jack had answered.

The world felt blurry here. It felt safe. Tim sighed- it wouldn’t last. “What stupid thing are we doing today?”

Jason clapped both hands together and pointed at the ceiling. “So! I was thinking...”

*

The mat didn't make the hit any softer. Tim's head bounced off Cassandra's fist, the back of his helmet, and the floor in quick succession. 

"Kick his ass!" Stephanie crowed where she was perched on a pommel horse, picking the small ears of corn from her lo-mein with finicky flickers of chopsticks. She was wearing a purple tank top over a sturdy sports bra, athletic pants, and the bruises he'd given her. Stephanie Brown didn't look up, the vindictive curl of a smile smearing over her face under the salt sweat tangle of her hair. He knew she tasted like the cheap caramel creamer she pocketed every time they bought Zesti for the Clocktower. She flicked her eyes up, chewing smugly as Tim tried not to spit blood inside his helmet.

Yellow screamed over his visuals, indicating threat. _No shit_. He rolled, feeling the blow dimple the mat where his shoulder had been. Cass was going easy on him: she hadn't aimed for his face this time.

Cass was silent, but her kicks felt playful. Tim wondered if this is how the mouse felt. He rolled again, hoping to get his knees under him. 

The Clocktower was quiet and focused as they trained. Steph was banned from playing music during sparring, but not banned from watching and heckling. She whooped happily and shoved noodles into her face. 

"Carb loading," she'd explained, bent over the counter at the tiny noodle joint on Fifth. She'd beamed at the small terrifying woman in pink floral polo who manned the counter and waved brightly at the wiry teen boy working a wok with a determined flex of skinny arms. The shop had refused to close after the Quake and Robin continued to defend it from roving gangs, dropping in to fight next to the woman as she expertly wielded a wok as a weapon. It had become Steph’s favorite almost immediately.

"This isn't on the meal plan," Tim had frowned from the roof. He was still in his uniform, practicing free running in the added weight of the helmet and corded kevlar weave. He had been ignoring the way the padding was damp against his chin. He’d wanted a shower and to lay face down on the mats in the Tower. 

"Spoiler," Steph had whispered, winking at the boy. Tim had kept visual with a small cam in the Western corner of the ceiling. "I don't follow the meal plan. I'm PMSing and I want salt. Sue me.” She’d turned, looking directly into the camera. “You want a Zesti?"

"Grape."

"Predictable." She’d cracked her gum, a sudden ripple of noise over the coms. "Diet, right?"

"Yes, please." He’d sniffed, swapping out of the camera and into the HUD. The visual had layered with pale golden lines to illustrate the edges of the roof, the airconditioner, the parapet, the hooked top of the fire escape where it curled up onto the roof, and a note about the distance between this roof and the next. The filters on his helmet had never been good enough to scrub the scent of soy sauce and ginger from the air. “...And an eggroll.”

 _PAIN_. A strike to the bundle of nerves at the back of his thigh shoved him face down as his right leg went numb. She’d managed it through the kevlar. Tim hissed, flopping into a clunky roll as Cass managed to convey a delighted laugh with her entire body that tipped into a slow uncoiled threat. 

Cass knew where he would move. He _was_ predictable. 

The air-conditioner kicked on, the shove of air prickling the tanned skin of Steph's arms and he saw Cass's eyes flick to the side. He wasn’t the only predictable one. Tim took a chance, flopped onto his back and flickered his fingers through the unlock code against the sensors on the touch screen of his faceless mask. He left his throat open.

The training space was a neatly plotted arena of sparring mats, gymnastics equipment, and battered Wing Chun dummy that would be replaced soon. Cass kept breaking the tangan and stepping back into a body shape that was utterly contrite. The Tower spiked upwards to a viewing platform that ran the edge of the room. There was a door at the far wall that opened to a small elevator. Oracle's rooms were two floors up, tucked between the training area, the supplies locker, and the Array. They'd hit the showers, the med bay, and then the kitchen before dispersing for the morning. 

Cass's attention snapped fluidly back to him: focus and motion intertwined in a seamless twist that Tim didn't have time to envy. He shifted his shoulder, barely fast enough to avoid the nerve strike that brought her just close enough, brought her down to him. The helmet flared blinding white, the staccato flashburn of Cass's shadow cast long and wicked on the high ceiling.

Cass reeled, blinded. Tim knew he had two seconds.

"Fight dirty," Dinah Lance had taught him.

"That doesn-"

" _Fight. Dirty._ " Black Canary had him on his back with a sharp thumbnail tucked against the small seam on his helmet where it integrated with the suit. "There's no honor in a street fight. This isn’t a dojo. This isn’t a movie. No one cares if you cheat as long as you live. If you don’t stop fighting fair you're going to die."

Tim had panted inside the helmet, trapped under the corded weight of her thighs at his sides, the threat of her fingers at his neck. She’d been beautiful like it was an afterthought, hair caught back in a sloppy ponytail. He’d envied the sharp definition of her arms, her calves, her abs. People underestimated her because she was beautiful. She used it against them. 

“Fight dirty. Got it.” He'd learned.

He slammed his face-mask into Cassandra's nose, wincing under the noise of the alarms that rippled over his visuals and the sound of bone breaking. 

Cass didn't stumble backwards; she didn't flinch and Tim was counting on that. Cassandra prowled forward, inexorable as the creeping pale of dawn against the twilight sky. She couldn't be stopped. He wasn’t good enough to win, so he decided to survive. Tim moved, pulling her head forward and using her as a prop to push to his feet. She could be avoided. 

The timer in his visual said the match had forty seconds left. Tim did the smart thing: he ran. He scrambled to his feet, ignoring the pins and needles in his right foot, pushing through the limp and sprinting for cover. Thirty five seconds. He heard Cass breathing, loud through her mouth for a moment until she went silent again. 

He realized she’d reset her nose. Thirty seconds.

He just had to avoid her. He darted for the gymnastics equipment, knowing that even someone like Cass would have to slow to navigate the bars, the balance beam, the-

The blow to the head came from his left and he went down hard. He blinked, rattled. The helmet had taken the force of a kick that would have shattered a normal visor. He couldn’t focus through the blazing alarms that layered and flagged over each other, vying for priority as he tried to get his heels under him to squirm away. Stephanie was laughing to his left and he watched the visual short once as the exterior cameras flickered and tried to reset. He watched Cass lean over him in a jerky display and touch the release.

“Cheater,” he muttered into the cold air, skin prickling and damp as the helmet servos disengaged and popped open. Cass grinned down at him. Steph slumped into a shivering huddle on the pommel horse, waving her chopsticks in the air in victory as she cackled.

“Loser,” Cass told him, voice light and high under the aching disuse as she flicked her fingers in an L to her forehead. She cocked her head and widened her dark eyes at him.

“Steph, what are you teaching her?” he managed, thumbing the blood from his nose. Cass just smiled around pink teeth, top lip smeared and bruises blooming under her eyes, and offered him a hand up.

“ _Banter_ , BitBoy. Witty banter.” Steph’s grin curled with a feral sort of pride, brilliant and wicked. It was her Robin smile. “I mean, you can get your butt kicked again just so I can teach her to teabag.”

“Please don’t. Okay. I give up,” Tim brushed off the back of his pants and grinned breathlessly at them. “That’s enough humility for one day. Besides, gotta save some strength for tonight’s patrol.”

“That was… _fun_. You’re better. Quick learner.” Cassandra gestured elegantly, slim body canted in genuine praise.

“Really?” Tim blinked. “Thanks.”

Cass nodded once and tapped him directly in the center of his forehead before he’d even registered that she was moving. “Careful. No big head.”

Steph hopped off the pommel horse and curled an arm around Cass’ waist. “Don’t worry about that with him.” She snorted handing over the carton of noodles for Cass to take. “Everything about him is dainty.”

“Rude.”

Steph just laughed, it was the happiest sound in the retreating shadow of No Man’s Land.

**Author's Note:**

> I have a [tumblr](https://irolltwenties.tumblr.com/) where I geek out about comics and pretty people. Comments are horded and stroked lovingly.
> 
> This concept has lived rent free in my head since the first moment I read about Avatar!Tim in a fic by the incomparable Te many many years ago. This is less dark, but I couldn't have done it without the trail they blazed.


End file.
